1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for stopping a print system from printing, the print system comprises a control unit for controlling the printing of sheets, a print engine for printing recording material on the sheets, an input tray for holding sheets to be printed upon, and a finishing unit. The method comprising the steps of scheduling a plurality of sheets for printing by the print engine and for finishing by the finishing unit, the scheduling step comprising, for each sheet of the plurality of sheets, sending a sheet request for the sheet from the control unit to the finishing unit, and upon receiving the sheet request, the finishing unit submits to the control unit an earliest expected arrival time of the sheet at the finishing unit, the earliest expected arrival time is a minimum delay time between the sheet and a previous sheet preceding the sheet.
A finishing unit is any unit positioned at an outlet of the print engine for printed media.
A finishing unit may be a stapler, a stacker, a perforator, a binder, a packager, a sealer, a folder, a stitcher, a varnisher, a laminator, a embosser, an stripper, a collator, a puncher, or any other finishing or paper handling device, or any combination of the foregoing.
2. Description of the Background Art
In the print system a sheet is transferred from an input tray through the print engine to a finishing unit. The trajectory from input tray to the finishing unit is also known as the paper path of the print system. When an error occurs in the finishing unit or in the paper path, the error will be notified to the control unit of the print system for example by sensors in the print system. The control unit will stop the print engine and sheets which are at that moment somewhere in the paper path have to be removed by a manual time-consuming action of the operator.
Sometimes operator actions are required in case of a local action request from the finishing unit, or to manually adjust parts of the finishing unit due to sheet specifications, or to manually unload a full stacker of sheets. If such operator actions are not scheduled, a paper jam may occur in the finishing unit and/or in the paper path.
The object of the invention is to provide a method that can stop the print engine without having to remove sheets from the paper path. Another object is to provide a print system in which the method is implemented.